A little over a year ago I joined the Exonia Network, which meant I could begin monetising views on my YouTube channel. So far, so good: people view my videos and I get paid a little bit of money whenever someone views/clicks on an advert. You won’t see me retiring to a yacht in the Bahamas any time soon; but the money that does come in is much better than a poke in the eye!

In the past 12 months my channel has surpassed 100,000 views and I am just short of my first major milestone in terms of subscribers (one thousand). It’s been almost 18 months since I hit 100 subscribers (and did this really cheesy video thanking all of my subscribers by name). Incidentally, for 1000 subscribers I am giving away my AVerMedia Game Capture HD. Watch this video to find out how to enter.

Anyway, to the point of this blog post…

How to earn more money from YouTube (this Christmas)

Credit really needs to go to Exonia Network for reminding me that – for a given amount of views – content creators will typically earn higher CPMs through the Christmas period. This little snippet was taken from the most recent Exonia Network newsletter:

The two most important months on YouTube!

When?

Hi Partners! November and December are historically the most important months of YouTube. It is critical you are aware of this, so that you can make the most of it.

Higher CPMs!

Advertiser spending peaks each year in November and December, which often results in higher CPMs (cost per thousand views). Thus meaning, the potential earnings you can make on YouTube significantly increase during these months.

More people watching!

The average number of viewers on YouTube can also increase in this period because for seasonal reasons people want to sit in their homes and watch YouTube. That means more people are watching, liking and subscribing – a greater number of potential viewers.

Our advice.

Quite simply, we recommend you do what do you best; make great videos people want to watch. More Vidoes = More Views = More Revenue. Be sure to contact us via any of the below if you have any questions – We’re here to help!

Taking advantage of higher subscriber engagement & higher CPMs during the festive season, more videos pretty much guarantees more income. But why stop there?

How to get more views on YouTube videos: basic SEO

My day job is concerned with the art of search engine optimisation (SEO). Typically, I teach companies how to get their websites to the top of Google and the strategies that I use can be directly applied to YouTube videos.

When it comes to websites, there are three areas that need attention:

On-site SEO: page titles, meta descriptions, on page text, images & videos (& any other content that can be embedded), link usage including internal linking;

Code: fairly self explanatory. Good code is good for SEO. Open source, if kept up-to-date, is a fairly safe bet; and

Off-site SEO: this is a very broad topic and I could (and often, do) talk about this for a whole day. However, you can pretty much sum this up by saying off-site SEO is the management of anything that concerns your business that is posted anywhere on the web, away from your own website.

Website SEO vs YouTube SEO

In my playlist how to (legitimately) get more views on your YouTube videos I cover this topic in detail, but for now all you need to know is that YouTube SEO requires exactly the same techniques as you would use on a website, however the extent to which you have control over your content is slightly reduced…..

On-site YouTube SEO: you only have access to titles, tags, thumbnail images (& names), video file names, video descriptions and subtitles. Despite the fact there is less to consider on a YouTube video than there is on a website, many people simply don’t bother.

YouTube Code: you have no control here. YouTube handle the code but it is important to understand how it all works. For example, YouTube uses the first 160 characters of the video description to generate a meta description.

Off-site YouTube SEO: this is pretty much identical to website SEO, except you have the ability to embed your YouTube videos elsewhere on the web as well as simply linking back to them.

A quick recap: how to make more money this Christmas

I appreciate that SEO can be a pretty dull subject, so I would understand if you are about to doze off at this point. In short summary, you need to:

(1) make more videos & benefit from higher subscriber interaction & higher CPMs during the festive season;
(2) try to work on your YouTube SEO to gain even more views via YouTube search. This should then lead to increased subscriber numbers, which in turn leads to more views; and
(3) try to build in the occasional affiliate deal.

Hold on… what’s this affiliate stuff?

Affiliate marketing is a fairly simple beast: you promote products or services and receive a commission every time someone makes a purchase via an affiliate link. Take my guide for setting up PC-free mode on the AVerMedia Live Gamer Portabe as an example: nestled within the post are a couple of Amazon links which see around 100 clicks per week. From those clicks, around 5 people will make a purchase and, every time that happens, Amazon pay me a small commission for the sale. I’d say on average I will see £10-20 per week, which isn’t bad considering it took me about an hour to put the post together.

Be warned though: if you’re just spamming products or services you’re going to see a very low conversion rate. I happen to own an AVerMedia LGP and think it is bloody brilliant. As such, I took the time to put together a guide for other people who either own one or who are thinking about buying one. In return, I make a few quid if anyone goes on to purchase an LGP after reading my guide.

Right now is a great time to play with affiliate marketing as Black Friday deals week commences on Monday 25th November, kicking off the festive discount season. This means your viewers have a decent incentive to purchase whatever product or service you choose to review – and make sure you let them know that!

Personally, I will be doing some more AVerMedia LGP videos in the run up to Christmas, alongside the obligatory look at the Playstation 4 (now that I finally have my PS4 delivery date – 29th November 2013).

YouTube Monay – a final thought

This post has gone on (and on and on and on), so I shall leave you with this checklist:

(1) Make More Videos;
(2) Try and implement some YouTube SEO;
(3) If you’re talking about products or services, try and drop in a relevant link [you can get them from Amazon Associates].

If you have any general questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments!

Happy Christmas 🙂